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News :: Miscellaneous |
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TRADING WITH THE ENEMY |
Current rating: 0 |
by Jan Kruse
Email: durljan (nospam) earthlink.net (unverified!)
Phone: 217 234-4720
Address: 6398 LERNA ROAD Mattoon, Illinois |
26 Jun 2002
Modified: 28 Jun 2002 |
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Report from a recent educational seminar in Cuba. |
 Report from a recent educational seminar in Cuba. |
TRADING WITH THE ENEMY
There is only one country to which I am not freely allowed to travel as a U.S. citizen. I cannot visit this nation unless I undertake a process of documentation to find an agency licensed by the U.S. Treasury Department that can provide travel through a third country such as Mexico or Canada.
Once I am there my country limits the amount of money I can spend each day. I must also limit purchases of what I bring out of the country to $100 of non-educational material.
This marginalized country is very poor, but struggles to provide universal health care, education and housing for all its citizens. By no means perfect, this nation does offer the inhabitants shelter and food and there is no drug trafficking as in so many other countries, including our own.
Unlike many other Latin American countries this island nation is not commercialized nor does it’s citizens live in fear of guerrilla warfare, death squads or rampant street violence.
This nation has a different political system than our own… and the irony of this is that when it comes to human rights violations and repression the U.S. maintains relationships, as well as financial assistance to many regimes that are violent and more repressive. Some of our current and past associations include such countries as China, Russia, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Pakistan and Israel.
Only CUBA receives the full wrath of a 42 year old U.S. blockade, that has not yet encouraged the majority of the inhabitants or the leadership to call for change.
During a recent trip during June of 2002 to Cuba I was able to observe first hand the result our repressive Embargo contributes toward the lack of medicine, food and trade available for our neighbor.
Thanks to the extreme views of the Miami Exile Community pushing the Bush administrations in both D.C. and Florida for the further tightening of the Blockade; only more sorrow and an increase in pain awaits the citizens of Cuba.
I saw the human toll that the Embargo is continuing to cause. The official US position in this area is not befitting our Nation as we call for peace and justice around the world. Our country should be embarrassed and ashamed of our contribution to the heartache and pain we add to a people when we force a separation of ourselves from the Cuban population.
The loss for the Cuban people is in medications, nutrition, and economic growth. Our loss as a nation is a moral loss. Our country has not and is not living up to the ideals we say we stand for. Cuba is not a threat to us nor to its Central or South American neighbors.
The U.S. policy of disregard (as we look away from the human pain inflicted) and our past policy of interference in other nations is the real threat to this hemisphere. The U.S. should end the Embargo now and let U.S. citizens freely and legally visit our neighbor - Cuba. This step would allow our nations to begin to come together. The reality of the human contact may then move each nation to find common ground and assist each of our countries to move forward…. Both nations have miles to go.
Since the U.S. comes from the position of economic and military strength we should take the lead toward reconciliation. Cuba’s position of strength is in endurance, unity, and resourcefulness. Many on both sides are ready to sit down together now!
However, we insult the Cuban people by expecting them to totally adapt to our wishes. Each nation has its own unique history.
My June trip to Cuba was not an opportunity for me to critique Cuba or participate in trading with the enemy. I saw my experience as a learning opportunity for myself as an U.S. citizen.
The official U.S. attitude/embargo toward Cuba goes back to Kennedy administration ruling that is based on the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act. This out dated policy was further tightened against Cuba by the cruel and repressive 1996 Helms-Burton Act.
Just as I hugged our Cuban guide farewell and extended a hand in friendship….so should the U.S. government make a move of reconciliation and thus begin the steps to regaining our nation’s humanity in our own neighborhood.
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world class cousins |
by jazzbo depew
jazzbo8 (nospam) hotmail.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 3
28 Jun 2002
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TO: Jan Kruse
and the world at large,
you may or may not know exactly who I am but I feel like we're cousins.
Are'nt we all like cousins in this old world? Jan I like the way you have succinctly and gently described how we miss so much by continuing our governmental persecution of the Cuban people. Before the "Big Embargo" there was another failed attempt at "bannana empirism" in the "sugar embargo".Help me out was that 1958? When our own CIA replaced the democratically elected presidenti Juan San Martin with General Batista democratic reforms took a back seat to corporate interest(193?) spawned ,I think, much by the "Platt Amendment(1902)" which virtually handed Cuba,and its people,to the sugar companies as plantation and slave populii.
Who would believe back in 1850 there was another vote in congress? A vote to make Cuba our next state.This fell short by 1(uno) vote(horror of horror they still have slaves in 1850 Cuba) and the honor goes to the next in line California.
So blah blah blah
Fidel ;borrowed a boat,got his 79 budies,mooched some guns,tete-de-tete with Che,pushed off from the Yucatan,hit the bay of pigs,got half slaughtered,hid in the hills,rallied the rowdy refuse of the 'plantation island',took it back,kicked the "sugar lackeies to Miami,and started up a country.Now I can't speak for you all but in my reading of history;That's a hero not a tyrant.
It's time to lift the colonial thumb from our Cuban cousins besides I'd like to try a fresh 'Supremo while I can still blow smoke.
Bad old habits die the hardest.
Keep up the good work cousin!
DenB................ |
